This invention relates to chess games, and more particularly to a variation of a chess game.
Without a doubt, former World Champion (1921-1927) Jose Capablanca was a phenomenal chess player. Although a term like xe2x80x9cgeniusxe2x80x9d is often blearily bestowed to infranacious recipients, Capablanca surely exceeded all such criteria, which merit this adornment by orders of magnitude in the chess domain.
Capablanca""s vision of what was coined the xe2x80x9cstate of chessxe2x80x9d extended the bounds of his own lifetime by at least 50 years. In the 1920""s, Master players were achieving draws roughly 25% of the time against members of their own class. Perhaps this lead to the eventual manifestation of the euphemism:
xe2x80x9cThe result of a game well-played is a drawxe2x80x9d.
In direct consequence to the increasing frequency of draws, chess time controls were lengthened. Since the end of World War II, longer secondary, and eventually tertiary temporal controls, have become status quo. Games previously lasting a couple of hours could now traverse one-fourth of a day or longer. This prompted Edward Lasker, as early as 1949, to issue the remark:
xe2x80x9cWe have reached a point where physical fitness and thorough knowledge of analyzed play are apt to decide the outcome of a match between front-rank chess masters, rather than ingenuity and profundity.xe2x80x9d
In the year 2000, it is not uncommon for Grandmasters to peacefully conclude a game as a draw, as early as the twelfth move. This is basically a mutual concession that the yet unplayed lines, well-known by both, perhaps even in a variation contested against each other in a previous encounter, offer nothing but the promise of several hours of trying to find what is not there; i.e. something new that is also worthy of testing. There are, of course, an infinitude of lines to avoid, that have not been played (all for good reason), so while these would be xe2x80x98newxe2x80x99, we naturally exclude them as xe2x80x98unworthy to testxe2x80x99 in tournament play.
It would be beneficial to provide a variation of chess that reaches beyond the traditional 8xc3x978 chessboard and cast of pieces. One that will challenge the grand masters now and 50 years into the future.
The present invention is directed to a method of playing a variation of chess. The method comprises the step of providing a rectangular chessboard having 80 contiguous playing squares disposed thereon. The rectangular board includes two player edges that are opposite each other and two non-player edges that are adjacent to the two player edges. The board has a-j contiguous columns that are aligned along each of the player edges and 1-8 contiguous rows that are aligned along each of the two non-player edges.
The method further comprises the step of providing a plurality of conventional chess pieces. The plurality of conventional chess pieces include two Rooks, two Bishops, two Knights, a King, a Queen, and eight Pawns for each player. The method also comprises the step of providing a plurality of non-conventional chess pieces. The plurality of non-conventional chess pieces include a Chancellor, an Archbishop, and two additional Pawns for each player.
The method includes the step of initially locating the conventional and non-conventional pieces on the two rows of the rectangular chess board that are disposed most proximate to each of the two player edges. The Rooks are located at column and row positions a1, j1, a8, and j8 respectively. The Knights are located at positions b1, i1, b8, and i8 respectively. The Bishops are located at positions c1, h1, c8 and h8 respectively. The Queens are located at positions d1, d8 respectively. The Kings are located at positions f1, f8 respectively. The Archbishops are located at positions g1, g8 respectively. The Pawns are located at positions (a-j)2, (a-j)7 respectively. After the initially locating step, the Chancellor may be moved, at an option of a player, as either a conventional Knight, or a conventional Rook and the Archbishop may be moved, at an option of a player, as a conventional Knight or a conventional Bishop.